


Before you ever met her

by Lebensmüde (Mocha_Me_Crazy)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, I am the worst, Miscarriage, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 21:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mocha_Me_Crazy/pseuds/Lebensm%C3%BCde
Summary: Steve didn't even realize what was happening until Bucky had shipped off. In retrospect, she should have suspected sooner, but how was she to know? They were always so careful, and it wasn't as if it happened all that often. Bucky was always so tired when he came home from the docks, and Steve’s poor health rarely left her in the amorous mood, even when she could go through with it without wheezing. A part of her didn't even think it was possible. She had so much trouble keeping herself alive, every winter was a gamble, how was she supposed to grow something inside of her?





	Before you ever met her

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually try and write this shit, it just sort of happens. Anyhoo.  
> Handwaving for limited knowledge on miscarriage and 1940s menstrual products. They may not exactly be period accurate (eyyyyy).
> 
> Title from Kimya Dawson's "Underground"  
> "I fee a kick inside and sigh  
> if this is a girl, I'm naming her Heather  
> She'll look just like you but her hair will be feathered  
> she'll say how you died before you ever met her.
> 
> Her hair will be feathered."
> 
> trigger warnings for discussion of early abortion techniques (including a brief mention of coat hanger abortions) and a semi-graphic miscarriage

Steve didn't even realize what was happening until Bucky had shipped off. In retrospect, she should have suspected sooner, but how was she to know? They were always so careful, and it wasn't as if it happened all that often. Bucky was always so tired when he came home from the docks, and Steve’s poor health rarely left her in the amorous mood, even when she could go through with it without wheezing. A part of her didn't even think it was possible. She had so much trouble keeping herself alive, every winter was a gamble, how was she supposed to grow something inside of her? 

She hadn't thought anything when her cycle was off. It wasn't uncommon for it to be late or weak or even to pass her by entirely. It was the one part of her illnesses that she didn’t resent. When she heard other girls complaining about pains and bleeding she could never help feeling a little grateful for her fucked up body. It wasn't until she dropped her good drawing pencil and found her sanitary belt gathering dust beneath the bed that she counted the days. Four months, four damn months since she had so much as spotted. Being tired and hungry was just a fact of life when you were poor and it was winter, and she felt she should have filled up her life’s vomiting requirements by the time she was fourteen, and that was ten years ago with her body disagreeing, but you didn’t grow up with a nurse for a mother without learning a thing or two. Four months.

Christ, what was she going to do? No one wanted to hire some knocked up broad without a husband. Hell, she had trouble finding work as it was, and most of the jobs she did manage to swing were only because they thought she was a man. She supposed she could still manage her shifts at Martinelli’s grocers, at least until she really started showing. She would have to start saving up more. There was still a bit left from her poster contest winnings, and she could always go back to drawing pamphlets for the drag bars down the street, just so long as they didn’t catch on to her not being “one of the boys” as it were. Christ she got hit on by enough fairies wearing heels and mascara to make Bucky stomp over to protect her honor. ‘Course when he did they would just start going after him, and he could never stay mad when someone was sweet on him.

Her more… unsavory business ventures, however, she would have to let go of sooner rather than later. She let out a snort of laughter at the image of herself with a belly the size of Jupiter and swollen ankles stuffed into slippers handing eight pagers over for George Wilkins to sell. She stuffed a hand into her mouth. Now they'd know where she got her material. 

Steve leaned against the wall while her helpless giggles faded. If it had been a few months earlier, she could have taken care of it. Epsom salts, a bottle of gin, you didn't grow up in Brooklyn without knowing a few tricks of the trade. She'd had enough conversations with the call girls down by the docks to know they would help her if she asked (and if she paid), but four months meant she was nearly halfway through. The only option at four months was taking a coat hanger to yourself and hoping you survived. She sobered up at the thought. Steve already knew she wouldn't. 

She'd have to keep it. Christ, Bucky was gonna be thrilled, once he got over the shock. He always said he wanted a whole house full of kids, eyes wide and shiny and speech slurred from cheap beer. “Dozens of 'em, Stevie! Can you imagine?" He’d sigh and lay his head on her breast. “A hundred little Stevie Rogers’ runnin’ around.” A smile. “God help us all.” He had stopped talking about it once he realized she wasn't ever going to be up to the task, Buck was good about that sort of thing, but Steve saw the way he always looked at the kids playing baseball in the empty lots. She knew he never stopped wanting. 

She knew Bucky would marry her when ( _if_ , a traitorous voice in her head said. _if_ ) he came back. He had already asked about a hundred times ever since they were seven and her ma had been letting her have it about ruining all her dresses and she’d always have a laugh and a joke to tell him no (“ask me again when you make your first million. I plan on developin’ expensive tastes.”) but they both knew it had never been a question of if, but of when. Steve guessed this sped up the timeline a bit. Mrs. Barnes was gonna be pleased as a peach when she heard she was making an honest man out of her boy. She'd be less pleased when she heard why. She knew the two of them were making time, she had to, they lived together for chrissake, but there was nothing like a bun in the oven to really drive the point home. 

She heaved herself up off the floor to look for some paper, already drafting up letters in her head when it hit her. _Bucky_. He had a month to go before he came home, and even then it was just for a couple of days before it was off to Europe with him. What if he got her letter and it distracted him? Buck got stupid when he got happy, Stevie knew him well enough to have seen it a hundred times, and in a damn war zone was not a place where he could afford to be stupid. If she told Mrs. Barnes, all of Brooklyn would know within the hour, and the whole world within a week. So. A month.

She could keep a secret for a month

 

-

 

Once she had noticed it, it was as though all of the symptoms jumped out at once. It was a week later when the cramping started. It began small, little twinges in her stomach and lower back making it uncomfortable to stand for too long. Then she was pissing every half hour and her underthings were so soaked by the end of the day with fluids and spotting and who _knew_ what else that she started wearing her sanitary belt just in case. She was spotting and nauseous and emotional and completely, utterly thrilled. She counted down the days until Bucky got back, until she could tell him and could see the look on his face. She was starting to show, her flat little stomach rounding out just above her hips, and she couldn’t wait to put on her tightest dress and meet him when his ship came in. 

But a week after that it was more than fluids staining her panties. It was more than spotting. The cramps became worse until she doubled over with the force of them. She couldn’t keep a thing down and she spent more time in front of a chamber pot retching up bile than she did doing anything else.

Monday saw her lying in bed, shaking and sweating in spite of the chill.

Tuesday saw her sitting in the communal toilet at three in the morning, smothering her cries into her handkerchief as blood and flesh and what could have been life released from her. 

The bleeding continued for three days.

Then it was over.

 

-

 

When Bucky came home, looking sharp and handsome and so, so happy to see her, she told him that she was getting over a cold, that’s why her eyes were red. She wore an extra sweater that day. 

The Barnes’ residence was so full of laughter that day, three sisters talking over each other for Bucky’s attention and Mrs. Barnes alternating crying and stuffing her only son full of home cooking. Steve was happy enough to melt into a corner and ignore Bucky’s worried looks. That night in bed, when Bucky kissed her, she shook her head and buried her face into his neck. Buck took it in stride, settling her into bed and laying down behind her, telling her that this was what he missed the most, holding her close, feeling her warm in his arms. Steve held tight to the arm around her waist and thanked God that Bucky couldn’t see her face. 

That was the last night she allowed herself to mourn.

The next day, when they went to the exposition, Steve stood in front of the recruitment booth and wondered. She had heard rumors of women who bound down their chests and bribed doctors to fake medical examinations. She thought of running, and shooting, of being hungry and tired, and of thinking nothing at all. She thought of the simple pleasure of showing bullies they were wrong. She was still thinking when a man with greying hair and spectacles gave her a long, considering look. He offered her his hand and introduced himself in a thick European accent. He told her he was working on a project, and would she like to come inside? Steve looked behind her at the exposition, at all the smiles and all the noise, and then looked back at the tired man in front of her. There was something in his eyes. Steve squared her shoulders and followed Dr. Erskine into the tent.

 


End file.
